Embrace the Wild Land (5 page)

Back at her
tipi
Abbie occupied herself by sponging down little Jason. The naked baby boy stood in a little tub of water, giggling as water trickled down over his ribs. Little Lillian sat to the side practicing beadwork. She was afraid of all the shouting in the distance, and she preferred to be near her mother. The other four children played in the village, obediently following orders that they were not to go near the fort or the place where their father was challenging the man called
Blade. The children were somber but joined in the games with their Indian friends, somehow sure that their big, fearless father would escape unharmed from the fight he was in. After all, it was just one of the games. At least that was how Abbie had described it to them.

“Your father will be fine,” she told them. “It’s just like wrestling and the shooting of arrows. But there are nothing but loud, excited men over there, so only Wolf’s Blood is allowed to go and watch.”

The children had accepted the explanation. Now Abbie’s heart raced and her throat hurt from choking back tears as the yells and war whoops rang in her ears. Her mind screamed a silent demand to know if Zeke was all right. Half the village was empty; even some of the Indian women had gone to see if they could get a peek. Tall Grass Woman, Abbie’s close Cheyenne friend, watched the children guardedly in a nearby grassy meadow where she kept them occupied with games.

Abbie trickled water over Jason again, needing to hear his laughter, wishing it would drown out the men in the distance. She smiled, pretending to be casual for her son’s sake. But her smile vanished when a large, dark figure loomed at the entranceway to the
tipi
and quickly darted inside. She sat staring dumbfounded at first at a burly, bearded soldier with a hideous scar on the side of his face. In the middle of a Cheyenne camp in broad daylight, with all the men supposedly involved in the fight and the betting, Abbie had not thought about having to protect herself.

She rose, wrapping a towel around little Jason and lifting him from the tub. “Who are you and what do you think you’re doing!” she demanded. Lillian stopped her beadwork and stared at the soldier with wide, frightened eyes as the man removed his hat, grinning hungrily and looking Abbie over as though she
were standing there naked.

“Name’s Cole, ma’am,” he answered. “Randolph Cole. I, uh, I come here to see if you was OK … find out if you was maybe a captive or somethin’. That breed steal you from your folks years back, maybe?”

She held Jason closer. “I married Zeke Monroe willingly, Mr. Cole!” she snapped. “We were legally married almost sixteen years ago at Fort Bridger, and I have papers to prove it. Now I will thank you to get out of my dwelling! You have no right to be here, and to enter without announcing youself was crude and callous! You had better leave before that fight is over and my husband comes back and finds you here!”

The man only stepped closer, and she held Jason protectively. “There ain’t a man left in this camp,” he told her. “And that knife fight has a few minutes to go. They’ll feel each other out first.” His eyes roved over her again. “And even when it’s over, there will be lots of bets to be paid off and some celebratin’ to do. Your man won’t be back for a bit.” He grinned. “Then again, Blade might win, and your man won’t be back at all, and you’ll be left a widow.” He reached out and touched a breast with the back of his hand. “A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be wasted like that. You got a lot of good years left in you.”

Abbie’s eyes blazed and she jerked back from his touch. “You get out of here!” she hissed. “You’ve no idea what my man is capable of doing to someone who threatens his family!”

The men’s shouts grew to a roar again, and Abbie felt crazy with wonder over her husband and fear of this man who stood near her now with rape in his eyes. “You’re near a fort, lady,” the man reminded her. “Your man attacks me and you’ll see a lot of dead Indians layin’ around, includin’ him. You know what happens to Indians when one of them dares to kill a settler
or a soldier. Now why don’t you just put that kid down and take off that tunic. We can do this real quick and quiet, and nobody will know the difference. Besides, any white squaw who will spread for a breed will spread for any man. Maybe you, uh, maybe you’re curious about what a white man is like, especially one that hasn’t had a woman for a while. You ever been with a white man?”

She turned her thoughts from Zeke now. She had to think straight. This man was right in what could happen if she screamed and got the Indians or Zeke involved. She knew the kind of trouble soldiers could make for her people. Things had been bad since the Treaty of Fort Wise and were getting worse. She did not want to cause trouble, yet neither would she allow any man but her own to touch her. She must somehow take care of this situation herself. She feigned desire and gave Cole a faint smile.

“Just don’t harm my children,” she told him.

He nodded, his face reddening with passion. She turned and handed Jason to Lillian, who looked at her mother with tear-filled eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” she told her daughter. “Keep Jason with you.” She turned back to face Cole, allowing him to come closer and unlace her tunic. She remained still as the tunic fell and exposed one breast. Cole jerked her close, grasping at the breast while he kissed her roughly. She felt ill at the taste of tobacco juice and the horror and humiliation of his hand on her breast, but she wanted to lead him on for the moment. She reached up around his neck, and just as as he was lost in the ugly kiss, she quickly dug her nails deeply into his skin, from his forehead, down over his left eye to the upper part of his cheek where no beard grew.

Cole cried out and pulled away, putting a hand over the already bleeding scratches, and Abbie used the moment
to bring her foot up hard into his groin. He grunted and bent over, and she used her foot again to push against his shoulder and send him sprawling backward, his rear end landing square into the tub of water.

Jason laughed at what he thought was a funny trick and Lillian began to whimper as Abbie quickly rushed to the side of the
tipi
and grabbed up her Spencer carbine. The rifle was old and had once belonged to her father, but it still worked, and she aimed it now at the groaning Cole, who struggled to get himself out of the tub of water.

“I’ve killed three Crow bucks with this gun, Mister Cole!” she told the man with cold determination. “I’ve never used it on a white man, but I’ll use it on you if you don’t get out of here right now!”

The man pulled himself out of the small tub in which he was close to being stuck. He sat hunched on his knees for a moment, catching his breath and fighting the pain of her kick. Blood ran from the deep scratches on his face as he managed to get to his feet and turn to glare at Abbie, his legs wobbly.

“You white squaw bitch!” he growled. “You’d shoot one of your own kind?”

“I don’t call the likes of you my own kind, mister!” she replied, keeping her voice firm to hide her own terror. She held the gun steadily. “Now get out of here!”

“If you shoot me, you’ll make big trouble for yourself and the rest of these red buggers you call friend.”

“Perhaps I would!” she spat back. “But either way, you’d still be
dead
, wouldn’t you, Mr. Cole?”

Their eyes met in challenge, and he decided that if she had truly killed three Crow men she was not a woman to argue with when she had a gun in her hands. He bent down and picked up his hat, pain still ripping through his groin, his breathing labored, his pants
dripping wet. He sought her eyes once more.

“You better hope your husband wins that knife fight today, white squaw woman! Because if he don’t, you won’t have nobody around to protect you!”

“I’ll have my son—and the entire Southern Cheyenne nation to protect me, Mr. Cole. Your threats mean nothing to me! Now get out of here!”

The man glared at her another moment, on fire with desire at the sight of her bared breast. He turned and stormed out.

Abbie closed her eyes and breathed deeply for composure, setting the gun aside with shaking hands. She quickly retied her tunic and rushed to Lillian. She grabbed Jason into her arms, meeting Lillian’s terror-filled eyes.

“You must not tell your father, Lillian, or your brothers and sisters! Do you understand? It’s very important they don’t know about that man who was just here. He could cause big trouble for your father! Promise me, Lillian!”

The little girl nodded and sniffled. Abbie hugged Jason close and could not prevent a sob from escaping her own soul. The crowd in the distance had grown louder, but she was more afraid of Zeke finding out about the soldier’s visit than of the knife fight, which must now be close to over. The way the men were shouting, perhaps it had already ended.

“Sweet Jesus, bring him back to me!” she whispered. “And don’t let him find out about this!” She opened her eyes and looked at Lillian again, giving her a reassuring smile, although tears spilled down her cheeks. “Help Mama clean up, Lillian. That man spilled water everywhere.”

Five

At the fort everything was pandemonium. Wolf’s Blood fought tears as he watched blood pour from three wounds on his father: the one on his stomach, one on his right forearm and one on his right thigh. But he seemed neither weak nor tired. Blade suffered from four slashes: the ones on his chest and upper right arm, a third across his chest again and one deep gash through his cheek and lips. Both men were panting and sweating and covered with dust, circling, waving their huge blades menacingly. Now was the time. Now was when instinct must dictate the right moment to move in! It was only a matter of which man would be first to grasp the advantage.

“Now, Father, now!” Wolf’s Blood quietly hissed through gritted teeth. “Hurry before you weaken!” The roar of the crowd around him was almost deafening, and the onlookers closed in, leaving the opponents less room in which to move.

Zeke suddenly let out a blood-curdling screech through gritted teeth, taking advantage of a misstep by Blade that made the man stumble slightly. A quick thrust ended with Cheyenne Zeke’s blade deep in the abdomen of the one called Blade. Blade froze in place,
his eyes bulging, while the crowd of onlookers suddenly went almost dead silent. Wolf’s Blood grinned through tears as the two opponents stood there for one tense moment, until Zeke, using his own brand of ending a knife fight, jerked upward with his knife, opening Blade’s torso before pushing the man off his knife and letting him fall backward, the leather strap ripping from his mouth.

Everyone gawked in astonishment as Blade lay writhing for a moment before his body finally went still in death.

“Damn!” someone muttered.

Zeke spit out his end of the leather strap and walked up to Blade, wiping blood from his own knife onto Blade’s pants, then shoving the weapon into its sheath. He turned to face his Cheyenne brother, Black Elk, who grinned; then he faced his son, seeing the relief on Wolf’s Blood’s face and the love in his eyes. Zeke raised his free arm and let out a Cheyenne yell of victory, and the rest of the Indians suddenly broke into howls and cheers, while Wolf’s Blood ran up to hug his father. The boy quickly began untying the strap that held Zeke’s left arm, while the Indians began collecting on their bets and making new bets on the horse races that would take place the next day.

“Father, you are hurt!” Wolf’s Blood was lamenting.

“The only bad one is my arm,” Zeke replied. “Tie that strap around above the cut, Wolf’s Blood. Get the circulation stopped until Abbie can pour some whiskey in there and wrap it good and tight. The other two are just surface cuts.”

Their eyes held, and the noise of the crowd seemed far away as they looked at each other lovingly. “I am glad you are all right, Father,” the boy told Zeke. “I hope one day I will be as great a warrior.”

Zeke nodded. “You will, son. You’ll be better.”

“I will try.”

Zeke put an arm around his shoulders. “I need to go back and rest. Tonight I’ll collect for the Appaloosas I sold. Tomorrow are the horse races, then we head for Santa Fe before we go home. I want to bring your mother to the Navaho camp tonight to trade for some of those blankets she’s been wanting, the ones with all the colors in them.”

“She will like that. Right now she will be worried, though. You should hurry and tell her you are all right.” He quickly secured the strap around his father’s arm to slow the bleeding.

They walked toward the Cheyenne camp, Zeke’s wounds stinging and his arm beginning to ache fiercely. But he would hide the pain as much as possible for Abbie’s sake. Their progression was slow, as Indians and even some soldiers stopped Zeke to congratulate him and offer him whiskey. Zeke ignored most of them, wanting only to get back to Abbie and assure her he was not badly wounded.

It was several hundred yards to the camp. In the distance Zeke could see children playing, and Abbie’s plump and faithful friend, Tall Grass Woman, waved at them, letting out a screech of joy at the sight of Zeke returning. Several Cheyenne men were quickly following them, cheering about the great knife warrior, Black Elk leading them, relieved that his half-brother had not been badly hurt. There would be much dancing and celebrating and feasting that night. The Cheyenne who were present would take advantage of the moment to forget about the illegal Treaty of Fort Wise and the fact that they were now expected to survive within a chokingly small piece of land the Great White Father claimed was all they had left. They would forget the fact that often some of them were shot on sight by settlers
for no reason. They would forget that when just one of them disobeyed the Great White Father, all of them were punished. This was not a time for dwelling on deprivation and disease. It was a time for celebration, time for the annual trading and betting and horse races at Fort Lyon a time to enjoy their women and to enjoy the warmth of the autumn sun before it stopped giving off enough heat to keep away the bitter winter snows.

Abbie emerged from her
tipi
. Her eyes locked onto Zeke’s, and he instantly sensed something wrong, something more than the fact that he’d been in a fight and wounded. Her eyes dropped quickly, too quickly. He could see her shaking even from the distance. He walked faster, quickly enveloping her in his arms while the rest of the men joked about the victorious warrior enjoying his woman that night as part of his prize. There was something about being victorious in war that made a man desire his woman. Abbie blushed at the other men’s gentle teasing but kept her face buried against Zeke’s chest, not caring that he was getting blood on her, caring only that he was alive and had walked back to her on his own two feet. Most of all she hoped she could hide the incident with Randolph Cole from him.

They ducked inside the
tipi
, while outside drums began beating and men’s hoots and laughter filled the air.

“Get out the whiskey!” Abbie ordered Wolf’s Blood. “And the alcohol. Zeke, you drink down some whiskey for the pain. I’ll douse the wounds with alcohol. It will burn terribly, you know.”

“I know,” he answered quietly, watching her closely. He noticed Lillian sitting quietly to the side, her body jerking occasionally as though she had been crying, her eyes wide as she watched him, her mouth sealed tightly. Jason ran around the
tipi
babbling about water but making no sense. Abbie was bringing things
over to him to treat his wounds: gauze, scissors, alcohol, a pan of warm water to wash out the wounds. She was nervous, not the kind of nervousness that came from someone she loved being wounded, but more the kind that came from wanting to avoid something. She would not meet his eyes directly, and she moved too quickly, tried too hard to be casual.

“We should sew this arm, you know,” she told him as she gently washed the deep cut on his right forearm.

“I want to try just wrapping it tight as hell,” he replied.

She sighed. “If you say so. But I think I should sew it.” She shook her head. “You won’t have any room left for scars pretty soon, Zeke Monroe. The day is coming when you’ll have to stop all this, you know.”

“I’ll never stop. The day I stop defending my honor and my family is the day I stop being a man.”

She glanced at him, then quickly looked away, turning and rinsing out the rag. The water turned red. “I suppose Blade is dead.”

He snickered. “Would I leave him any other way?”

She gently washed the wound once more. “I suppose not.” She reached for the alcohol while Zeke took a bottle of whiskey from Wolf’s Blood with his left hand and put it to his lips. He took a long swallow, then set the bottle down and watched Abbie with all-knowing eyes while she doused the wound with the alcohol. He jerked at the pain, but made no sound. For several quiet minutes he let her work, loving her, feeling apologetic, wishing he could have given her a better life, even though she had never asked for more. But strangely, she was not his Abbie now. Something was amiss.

Wolf’s Blood watched also, thinking there was something different about his mother. Perhaps she was just upset with Zeke for getting into the fight in the first place. But that would not be like her. Yet she was too
quiet.

“I’ve made you angry,” Zeke told her, trying to discern her quiet aloofness.

She shook her head. “No. I’ve lived with you too many years to be angry over something like this.”

He frowned, noticing an odd red puffiness at the corner of her lower lip. His chest tightened with apprehension.

“What’s wrong with your lip?” he asked.

She met his eyes too quickly. “My lip?” She put her fingers to the spot, disgusted with herself for being unable to control the blush that rose to her cheeks. She had not realized Cole’s brutal kiss had left a mark. “I … must be getting some kind of sore,” she answered, returning to wrapping his arm. It was then he noticed the shoulder of her tunic was laced crookedly, and a pale bruise, like that of a finger or thumb mark, was appearing on the inner side of her left arm. He reached out and grasped her wrist firmly but gently.

“Suppose you look me in the eye and tell me again about your lip,” he told her. “You’ve never had a blemish or a sore on your face since I’ve known you, Abigail Monroe!”

She swallowed and met his eyes hesitantly. “I said it was a sore,” she told him quietly.

His eyes flashed. “Like hell!”

“Zeke, we are at a fort! A
fort!
” she said in a shaky voice. “We’re surrounded by soldiers, and you know what that can mean! Let it go, please!”

He studied her eyes, gentle brown eyes that pleaded with him now. “Let
what
go?” he asked carefully.

She looked at her lap and shook her head. He grasped her chin firmly and forced her to look back up at him. “Answer me, woman! Let what go?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Beat me if you want! But I’ll not tell you!” she replied, a tear slipping down
her cheek.

There was a long moment of silence as she waited for an angry reaction. But he only spoke her name softly.

“Abbie-girl.” She opened her eyes to meet his loving ones. “I’ve never laid a hand on you and you know very well I never would, no matter how angry I might be. You’re talking foolish, which only tells me there is something terribly wrong. You’ve never lied to me and you’ve never hid anything from me. So don’t play games with me now. Trust me, Abbie.”

“But … the soldiers!” she whimpered.

“You let me worry about that. I brought my woman along on this trip because I thought it would be good for her to get away from everyday hard work, away from the loneliness of living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with never any company and no place special to go. I brought her along because I hate being apart from her and I wanted her with me—wanted to show her things, buy her things. We haven’t even been to Santa Fe yet. You’ll like Santa Fe, Abbie-girl. I want to buy you something nice there—anything you want. And I don’t want anything that’s happened here to spoil your good time. Now you tell me what happened and let me handle it.”

“Someone has hurt her!” Wolf’s Blood hissed. “I’ll bet it was one of those white soldiers. It was, wasn’t it?” the boy demanded, his fists clenched.

Her eyes were still on Zeke’s, and he saw the pain and humiliation there, mingled with an almost apologetic look. “No apologies, Abbie-girl,” Zeke told her. “Just the truth, plain and simple.”

She watched him for several silent seconds. He was still painted for battle, his handsome face fierce but his dark eyes gentle. His presence was powerful. He always had a way of making her do his will in such matters. She could not deny him.

“A soldier … came into the
tipi
,” she told him. Her body jerked as she sniffed in a sob. “Oh, Zeke! Don’t do anything foolish!”

He sighed and pulled her close with his good arm, then looked up at Wolf’s Blood. “Go outside, son. Take Lillian and Jason with you.”

“I want to get that soldier!” the boy growled.

“I’ll take care of it. Go on outside so your mother and I can talk.”

Wolf’s Blood sighed impatiently, then walked over and picked up Jason. “Come with me,” he said to Lillian, who quickly obeyed her older and much revered brother. The boy stopped and looked at his mother, who wept quietly against his father’s chest. “I should have left Smoke with her!” the boy lamented with a mixture of anger and sorrow.

“It’s all right,” Zeke answered. “I’m the one to blame.” Both Wolf’s Blood and Abbie could already sense the rage that seethed beneath Zeke’s calm exterior, for although he gently stroked Abbie’s hair, he was tense, his eyes showing a need to kill. Wolf’s Blood left, and Zeke ran his hand over Abbie’s shoulders. “I’m afraid you’ve got to finish my arm, Abbie-girl,” he told her gently. “Why don’t you tell me what happened while you wrap it.”

She sniffed and nodded, pulling back and taking a handkerchief from the beaded belt at her waist where she’d put it after crying earlier. She blew her nose and wiped at her eyes, and Zeke’s heart ached at the thought of her warding off the soldier alone, just to keep her husband and the Cheyenne out of danger.

He reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “Who was it?” he asked.

She turned to finish wrapping his arm. Blood had already soaked the gauze she had used so far, and she began wrapping faster. “I still say I should sew it!” she
fussed.

“I heal fast,” he replied. He sighed impatiently, and the entire
tipi
seemed filled with his power and thoughts of vengeance. When he was this way, Abbie always thought she could hear drums and bells and distant war cries, for he was pure Indian, his thoughts filled only with revenge and murder. “I want an answer, Abbie,” he told her gently but sternly. “I asked you who was here.”

There was no arguing with him. “He called himself Randolph Cole.” She swallowed. “He’s … a big man … with a beard and an ugly scar on his left cheek where no beard grows. And he …” She hesitated and glanced up at him. If he were not her own husband, she would have been afraid of the dark warrior look in his eyes, the thin scar that ran down one side of his handsome face showing whiter than usual. The scar had been put there by a Crow Indian’s knife years earlier, and the Crow Indian had not lived. This man had known nothing but violence all his life, and she often marveled that he could be such a gentle and loving husband and father. She returned to dressing his wound, wondering when the day would come that one of his wounds would kill him. “He will have scratches over his left eye,” she continued. “I put them there.”